Kicking Things Off...

“At the end of the day, games can facilitate learning and learning is one of the most satisfying  experiences we can have.” This week I sat down with Rafael Morado to talk about Blockchain and Game Design. I love this episode for two reasons. First, because it made me smarter, dispelling a lot of my naiveté about building games on the blockchain and second, because it all sprung from a dumb tweet I made a few weeks ago (Read the tweet and initial convo here). Rafael is a consummate professional, he studied game design and has worked for studios like UbiSoft and the makers of Eve Online. He’s currently at Dapper Labs building games and product managing and he’s got a fantastically unique perspective as he’s begun blending those two expertises into a really unique POV in the space. Be sure to check out MetaMedia who’s publishing and cross-sharing this show under their media-umbrella on  Twitch  and  Twitter  for their weekly live show, The Spicey Take, and their first podcast show  The Defi Download.   I’m Zach Herring, I’m on Twitter, @ zherring , DMs are open. You know of amazing designers, researchers, or product people in the space doing dope stuff, drop me a line, let me know who I need to talk to! Relevant Links Find Rafael on Twitter → https://twitter.com/nagual_ape Follow Dapper Labs → https://twitter.com/dapperlabs Find Zach on Twitter → https://twitter.com/zherring Cheese Wizards → https://www.cheezewizards.com/ Resources Man, Play, and Games → https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/bDjOPsjzfC4C?hl=en Rules of Play → https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/176698.Rules_of_Play?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=4SARd4zpZq&rank=2 Global Game Jam → https://globalgamejam.org/ Game Maker Studio → https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker

I sat down with Jessica Schilling and Jim “Cake” Lee, designers and technologists working with Protocol Labs on their IPFS and FileCoin Slate projects.  It was a banger. When designers “talk about design” a lot of times, it’s the shop top. The tools, the instruments.  The systems. There’s a lot of content like that out there. In this episode we dug a lot more into the philosophy behind it, the why that goes into designing these meta-systems. This has been Proof of Usability. Be sure to check out MetaMedia who’s publishing and cross-sharing this show under their media-umbrella on  Twitch  and  Twitter  for their weekly live show, The Spicey Take, and their first podcast show  The Defi Download.   I’m Zach Herring, I’m on Twitter, @ zherring , DMs are open. You know of amazing designers, researchers, or product people in the space doing dope stuff, drop me a line, let me know who I need to talk to. Relevant Links Find Cake on Twitter → https://twitter.com/wwwjim/ Find Jessica on Twitter → https://twitter.com/dzesika/ IPFS → https://ipfs.io/ Slate → https://slate.host/ Zach’s Twitter → https://twitter.com/zherring MetaMedia → https://twitter.com/meta_media_

For the first official episode of Proof-of-Usability, I’m re-releasing my chat with Blocknative's Co-Founder and CEO Matt Cutler ( @mcutler) from back in March. Why should you listen to Matt about building products people want? Uh, because he’s a boss. Literally. Founder & CEO of Block Native. Multiple founder, 7 times over. He’s taken companies public, split them up, merged them together and has a just a really unique, seasoned perspective. He’s been building internet companies since 1994. This kind of seasoned founder is still rare in the blockchain space. Like a lot of killer projects in the space they started building…something that wasn’t BlockNative. His story of how they pivoted by listening to user feedback is a great one. And how Mark thinks about building market-informed products is worth the price of admission (your time!) alone. I learn a ton every time I sit down to talk with him, and this time was no different. This has been Proof of Usability. Be sure to check out MetaMedia who’s publishing and cross-sharing this show under their media-umbrella on Twitch and Twitter for their weekly live show, The Spicey Take, and their first podcast show The Defi Download.  I’m Zach Herring, I’m on Twitter, @zherring, DMs are open. You know of amazing designers, researchers, or product people in the space doing dope stuff, drop me a line, let me know who I need to talk to. Relevant Links https://www.blocknative.com BlockNative's Latest Research Study: MemPool Forensics For Black Thursday Matt Cutler's Twitter Zach's Twitter

We kick things off with Proof-of-Usability, a limited series exploring Design in the Blockchain space.  A special shout-out to MetaMedia who’s currently publishing and cross-sharing this show under their media-umbrella. Be sure to check out their weekly live-stream, The Spicey Take, find them on Twitch at Meta_Media and Twitter @Meta_Media. I’m Zach Herring, I’m on Twitter, @zherring, DMs are open. You know of amazing designers, researchers, or product people in the space doing dope stuff, drop me a line, let me know who I need to talk to.